Posted on 12/27/2015 9:13:40 AM PST by Maine Mariner
If what you want is reliable bandwidth, cable, hands down.
Something to remember about advertised speeds: they are only good for the network you are on. Once your connection access a server outside of your provider’s network, speed wise you are limited to whatever speed those networks are putting out at that particular time.
For example, you may be on an advertised 60meg network, and get 35megs within your area, but going outside could slow you to 2megs or less if those networks are having problems at that time.
Afte years of cussin and fightin HughesNet we found a relatively nearby WISP (Wireless Internet Service) and although had to put up a tower and repeater (luckily we are in the woods) the internet service is much better and no weather outages or HughesNet fake FAP slowdown punishments.
AT&T sucks.
Dish sucks.
Time Warner sucks.
Google suck.
Take your pick. Each will have you muttering to yourself before long.
Instead of streaming you can DOWNLOAD content.
That’s what I do.
There are several SAFE, LEGITIMATE sites that have public domain content for free- and there’s a LOT of good PD film and TV out there.
If you’re comfortable with the internet you can DOWNLOAD ANYTHING from the ‘iffy’ link sites.
But you have to be careful.
Time Warner Cable is acceptable for Cable and internet service and is generally reliable. If given a choice I would drop TWC for Verizon FIOS in a heartbeat. If you’ve never known the difference then it doesn’t matter. Once you’ve used FIOS for any lenght of time you see the clear advantage of fiber-optic over RF based cable.
Some of those stations showing old movies and TV shows that are on antenna TV are enjoyable. I like the money I'm saving more than I liked any of the small number of shows I no longer watch.
Northfield Center, Ohio. Between Cleveland and Akron. Time Warner “bundle.” Three weeks ago it went out ten times in four days. And when it goes out the phone goes out too. I have to power down and reboot the modem, which takes a while. PITA!
why not Verizon?
Our provider has kept the “basic” offering for low income people and they went 100% digital earlier this year. Our TV’s have to have a digital tuner but if a customer has an old analog TV the cable company provides a converter free of charge. We do not receive any encrypted channels.
The other cable provider here in town does not have that option, all TV’s have to have a box. We get non-HD on every channel except 5 or 6 locals that are HD. Sudden Link gets all us old cranks that do not want 250 channels and a box with new controller to keep up with on every TV in the house.
If you are going with a dish be very sure you have no trees blocking the satellite direction or you will regret it.
There is no cable around my area. Cell phones do not work. Century link is the telephone provider and a very slow oversubscribed DSL. I am thinking about going back to dial up as it is cheap and I will not have to pay century links DSL fees for something a little faster than dial up. The fiber optic century link had washed out in a flood so they will replace it someday. I suspect by then satellite will be the way to go.
Take your pick.
Century link sucks big time. 47K DSL.
All else being equal, you’re gonna get WAY better Internet service from Cable than any satellite Internet service. In my opinion, satellite Internet service is useful only for those who live in the DEEP sticks and have no other option at all.
The problem with satellite Internet service is that geosynchronous satellites are stationed above the Earth at 22,000 miles, and it therefore takes about .5 seconds for a radio signal from Earth to reach the satellite, be repeated back down again to the requested web server, then back up again with a chunk of the requested information and then finally repeated back down to you, four trips equaling 88,000 miles, which as it turns out, at those distances, the speed of light is not really as blazingly fast as we have imagined, or at least not fast enough.
And while many such data-chunk requests can be in progress simultaneously like railroad cars strung out along a celestial railroad track to help compensate for that latency, every server and all of your clients have to be specially optimized for that to work well. Plus nothing can compensate for the latencies involved with starting and finishing many individual web pages, videos, file downloads and the like.
Additionally, your satellite dish has to have direct line of sight to the satellite and weather can affect the quality of the connection.
Go with cable and don’t think a second time about it.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Satellite_Internet_access
Cable internet is better than Dish.
I used to sell cable in the early days. Here is my suggestion:
I used to tell my friends to but the promo, and write down what you watch. Then drop to that level. Most of the time this meant High speed internet. Some of them bought Netflix or Hulu.
For the next week, track what you stream, watch, or download. At the end of the week figure out what is best. Downloading on satellite internet sucks.
My advice is to Ditch the Cable, the satellite and the TV set. It is easier to actually do stuff while listening to the radio and you can talk back to the Internet.
Stoopid TRC just went down again for 20 minutes!. Don’t know if this will post! Phone still dead
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